Constitutions Of Freemasonry.

own province , as fully acknowledged as in England , yet in Grand Lod ge he has no power beyond that of any private member , and provision would appear to have been carefull y made to prevent his assuming the power which has been allowed , for want of proper supervision ,

to " drift" into his hands in England , a power which he ought never to have possessed , and which he could never have assumed had the brethren appointed to the office of Grand Wardens , in former years , known or performed their duty . And here , for the present , we again close our review .

Architectural Study And Architectural Progress.

ARCHITECTURAL STUDY AND ARCHITECTURAL PROGRESS .

ARCHITECTURE AND ARCHJEQLOGY .

{ Continued from gage 365 . ) By the kindness of Mr . Street , I am enabled to illustrate my meaning better than by an anecdote , for he has to-day lent me these beautiful sketches , which were made by him to illustrate the very curious and interesting development of Romanesque architecture in Le Puy . These sketches are

well worthy of your attentive examination , though the more practical and useful ones , consisting of plans , dimensions , sections , & c , being contained in note-books , are incapable of exhibition in this manner . Never be deterred from measuring and sketching an old building , because it has been already published or " because you can get photographs of it . The latter are no doubt

most useful in many ways , but engravings and the published sketches of other architects , though pleasant and often suggestive to those who have sketched much themselves , are absolutely valueless to a student as the means of selfeducation . Tour own sketch may represent what has been better represented fifty times before , and when finished you may perhaps never refer to it again ; but if have made

you it intelligently , it has done its work , and your mind has been collecting materials which it will never lose . The power of sketching rapidly , correctly , and usefully , can only be attained by long and constant practice . The first attempts must be slow and laborious in order to ensure correctness ,

wnicn is of course ot primary importance ; but every step gained and every new sketch you get will make 3 our labour more of a pleasure , which indeed it ought to be to you from the first , if your heart is in it . This advice , however , and much more like it , you will say you have heard so often that you are tired of it . I think it cannot be too often repeated until it bears better fruit than it has done hitherto . The

approaching year will , I hope and believe , afford young architects a fresh inducement to this line of stud y in ' " The Pugin Travelling 3 ? und . " I can imagine no memorial to that gifted man which wouldmore thoroughly accord with the spirit of his works and writings ; we feel sure such a project would have had his hearty approval while living , and it is to be hoped in honour to his name as well as for the advancement

of our art , that it may be productive of worthy results . I may mention , also , parenthetically , that a rumour has reached us from artistic circles ( which it is to be hoped may prove to be something more than a rumour ) that the Eoyal Academy are about to bestir themselves to do much more for the students than they have ever yet done . If the rumour becomes a factit will be hailed with deliht ball

, g y lovers of art , and we may hope that the architectural student will be honoured with a due share of attention , especially in giving him increased facilities of studying the figure . This branch of drawing is now , I believe , almost universally admitted to be essential to an architect ' s education , and yet the

architects who can draw the figure with any approach to correctness may almost be numbered on the fingers . If the Council of the Eoyal Academy knew what a desideratum this is in our profession , and how gladly any facilities of this branch of study would be greeted , they would , I think , soon inaugurate the rumoured changes . But to return to the sketching of old buildings . There is

one subject for our special study here to which I wish to direct the attention of such of our members as are of my way of thinking , because I cannot help fearing it is much neglected by many , partly perhaps , from its comparative difficulty , but more I suspect from a doubt as to its ever being of any practical use . You will be surprised , no doubt , when I mention what it is , as those who profess to know " all about

Gothic , " of course include this subject under that head . I allude to the development of the Gothic vault . On this development the whole constructive history of Gothic architecture hangs , and unless we study it carefully , we shall never get that true and broad perception of its principles , which will enable us to apply them successfully in our own practice . We may rarely , perhaps never , be called upon to

construct a Gothic vault , and I am not one of those who hold that a vaulted roof is necessarily and absolutely indispensable to a well-developed Gothic church in our own day ; that is a matter fairly open to discussion in many ways ; but what I mean to say is this , that as the whole gist of the constructive development of Mediaeval architecture lies in the gradual improvement and perfecting of the vault , we are

bound in studying the style to pay especial attention to that point . We all know that in a cathedral of the thirteenth century , when the architect had settled how he would vault over his space , the plans or horizontal sections of the different stages followed with unvarying certainty ; so much so , indeed , that an inspection of any one of these plans would enable , a man versed in the subject to trace the vault

tolerably correctly without seeing it . Now , of all the young architects of our day who would complacently undertake the erection of a church in " the Gothic taste , " how many do you suppose could do this ? We will not inquire too luriously , but I believe if it were known , I should be held excused for insisting thus on what appears to be a selfevident truth .

I now propose to read to you a letter which I received yesterday from Mr . Scott , full of valuable suggestions and encouragement to us . After expressing his regret that the illness of a member of his family prevents his being with us this evening , he goes on to say : —

" I cannot help thinking that yours , as a junior society , has the means of doing fully as much good as the senior institution , and that without in any degree clashing with it ; for there is no reason —Inifc the reverse—why many of your memhers should not be Associates or Fellows of the Institute . You have , however , in your own society more ample means of actual and practical self-iurprovement than wo have ; and as ours is an art the education to which ought never to stopand which needs continual rubbing to

-, up pre vent retrogression , I think the society which does most to promote what may be called the self-education of its members , is the one most practically useful ; nor do I think this one jot more needed by , or appropriate to , young architects , than those more advanced in age and practice . We all need it equally , for , as I said before , our education should be constant and irrespective of age ; but it is the good fortune of younger men to have fewer hindrances to it , and to

have minds more fresh and more susceptible of it , so that they should ' strike while the iron is hot , ' ' make hay while the sun shines , ' and work themselves up to the highest degree of perfection rmd artistic skill they can , while opportunities and susceptibilities are favourable . It would do us all good if we could be put through a course of elementary art of one kind or another every year , just as soldiers have to do with their drill . We old fellows cannot do so , and are , therefore , in danger of retrogression . Younger men ,

in some form or other , can do so ; and such a society as yours might greatly facilitate it . I do not think the oldest and most established members of your society should think it beneath them to practise together at stated periods those branches of drawing , modelling , & c , which tend to make a man a true artist , —not in the sense of being a landscape painter or skilful representer of buildings ( useful as these accomplishments are ) , but rather those kinds of art which make a man a skilful architect in the highest sense , e . g ., the drawing and designing of sculpture ornament ; of figures as used in architecture , and as combined with architectural ornament ; of animal life ( both natural and imaginary ) as used in the same wav ;